Along the ancient pathof the Monongahela River, Braddock, Pennsylvania sitsin the eastern region of Allegheny County, approximately nine milesoutside of Pittsburgh.

An industrial suburb, Braddock is hometo Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, the Edgar Thomson Works. Operating since 1875, it is the last functioningsteel mill in the region. For 12 years, I have producedcollaborative portraits, still lifes, landscapes and aerial views in order to build a visual archiveto address the intersection of the steel industry, the environment, and the health care system's impacton the bodies of my family and community.

The tradition and grandnarrative of Braddock is mostly comprised of storiesof industrialists and trade unions. Currently, the new narrativeabout Braddock, a poster child for Rust Beltrevitalization, is a story of urban pioneersdiscovering a new frontier. Mass media has omitted the factthat Braddock is predominantly black. Our existence has been co-opted,silenced and erased.

Fourth generation in a lineage of women, I was raised under the protectionand care of Grandma Ruby, off 8th Streetat 805 Washington Avenue. She worked as a manager for Goodwill. Mom was a nurse's aid. She watched the steel mills closeand white flight to suburban developments. By the time my generationwalked the streets, disinvestment at the local,state and federal level, eroded infrastructure, and the War on Drugsdismantled my family and community.

Grandma Ruby's stepfather Gramps was one of few black men to retirefrom Carnegie's mill with his pension. He worked in high temperatures, tearing down and rebuilding furnaces,cleaning up spilt metal and slag. The history of a place is writtenon the body and the landscape. Areas of heavy truck traffic, exposure to benzene and atomized metals, risk cancer and lupus. One hundred twenty-three licensed beds,652 employees, rehabilitation programs decimated. A housing discrimination lawsuitagainst Allegheny County removed where the projectsTalbot Towers once stood. Recent rezoning for more light industryhas since appeared. Google Maps and Google Earth pixelationsconceal the flammable waste being used to squeeze the Bunn familyoff their home and land. In 2013, I chartered a helicopter with my cameras to documentthis aggressive dispossession. In flight, my observation revealsthousands of plastic white bundles owned by a conservation industry that claims it's eco-friendly and recycles millions of tires to preserve people's lives and to improve people's lives.

My work spirals from the microto the macro level, excavating hidden histories. Recently, at the Seattle Art Museum, Isaac Bunn and I mounted this exhibition, and the exhibition was usedas a platform to launch his voice. Through reclamation of our narrative, we will continue to fight historic erasureand socioeconomic inequality.